„I find it hard to see this illness as anything other than a gift. Now, everything has become more important, more beautiful, more real”

“I find it hard to see this illness as anything other than a gift. Now, everything has become more important, more beautiful, more real. The life I have today feels so much better than my old one,”

—Alicja confesses, tears of emotion rolling down her cheeks.

From the very beginning, her attitude astonished the medical team. On the oncological surgery ward, where patients recover—often after a mastectomy and breast reconstruction—such an aura is rarely encountered. The nurses shared their anxiety with me: Alicja felt “too well.”

In their eyes, her radiant smile so soon after such major surgery had to be a mask.

Fearing that the patient was locked in a mechanism of denial*, they requested my consultation.

I wrote this text for you to shed light on how unique and paradoxical the ways of coping with a sudden diagnosis can be. It explores whether the experience of a potentially fatal illness must always be traumatic for everyone; although it shatters one’s existing world, it can also become the catalyst for a profound, structural transformation.

Facing the Diagnosis: When Words Fall Silent

Our unconscious mind knows neither the concept of time nor its own end; we wake up, work, and plan as if we were immortal. We invest enormous energy into trivial details, which is the ultimate proof of how effectively we push the thought of our finality away.

However, a cancer diagnosis rips this veil apart. The fear of one's own finiteness emerges, often stripping away the ability to speak about oneself, the illness, or the future. At that moment, patients experience an encounter with something devoid of meaning, something that evades symbolization—unutterable and terrifying in its rawness. Most people fall silent after a diagnosis, overwhelmed by the immensity of fear. Alicja’s case, however, was different: her narrative capacity actually flourished, becoming an enigma to everyone around her.

When I first entered her room, I saw a woman with fair hair and large green eyes who radiated serenity. Sitting on the bed, she said very calmly: “I’ve already seen the new breast, I like it. Really, everything is fine.” We talked for a while. I suggested another visit the following day. Alicja agreed, saying with a slight smile, as if she could hardly believe it herself: “Alright, because maybe by then that famous backlash (un contre-coup)** will kick in.”

The next day, I found her just as relaxed, though slightly bored by the hospital routine. She shyly confessed that the illness didn’t really bother her. We had a brief consultation, interrupted by nursing care, but two weeks later, when Alicja returned to the ward due to minor complications, she called out the moment she saw me in the doorway: “Please, sit down!”—and I could sense a powerful need to tell her story in her voice.

In No Man’s Land

Alicja is thirty-six years old. For the last ten years, she lived in Portugal, never fully integrated into the administrative system there, without permanent residency or stable employment, leaving her in a state of constant dependence on others. She recounts that she couldn’t buy a car or get a loan on her own: “I always had to rely on someone else, I don't know how I could live that way. While I was there, I didn't realize it.” Shortly after returning to France, following routine check-ups, she received her diagnosis—breast cancer. She confessed that she cried the whole first day, but then new feelings emerged: “What if this is my great opportunity?”

The patient did a photoshoot before her surgery, which she was very pleased with, even feeling proud of her body: “I recognized myself; some photos are funny, others are moving or more beautiful.” She felt that, for the first time in her life, she allowed herself to focus entirely on herself, and to do so with great love. She added: “I would like the people around me to accept that the illness has become something positive for me. Right now, I feel better with my body, with myself. Before, I would look in the mirror and think I was ugly. Before, there was bulimia, there were many things; I distanced myself from my body, and now the illness—truly in a surprising way—is bringing me closer to myself, very deeply, with great love and gentleness. Even as a child, I never had this. Before, it was a constant pain.” Until her illness, she had never been able to perceive herself as feminine. She believed there was nothing feminine about her and thought that feeling would never change.

For Alicja, the diagnosis suspended the judgment of others; paradoxically, it lifted the weight of social expectations. Alicja explains: “You are in a ‘no man’s land,’ because when you are sick, society doesn't demand the same things. I don't have to prove anything—not that I'm beautiful, nor anything else—and because of that, I feel beautiful.”

The Northern Lights Metaphor

Most patients speak of losing their former lifestyle, of emptiness, and of a traumatic waiting period to regain health and resume past activities. However, Alicja experiences this time as a new and better life. She feels as though she “summoned” the illness to pull her out of her previous "wandering."

“I finally feel free,” she says, and her relationship with the world has “taken on an unprecedented clarity.” Alicja also feels comfortable being alone: “I haven't discovered everything yet, I haven't quite understood how this new world works, but I feel like I have a new life. Even death doesn't scare me, just like the things that used to terrify me no longer do.” Even when she sleeps, her sleep has a different quality. Her connection to the world is no longer what it used to be: “It's as if there is much more love, color, and brightness in it; my photos represent that. I don't know why, but this inner change takes my breath away a little.” When I ask her to elaborate, she replies: “It’s like seeing the Northern Lights—I've never seen them, but I imagine it must be the same feeling in reality: a positive breathlessness, a sense of wonder. It’s a kind of awe, as if I were discovering another dimension, another world, new possibilities.” Through the metaphor of the Northern Lights, Alicja evokes what is difficult for her to comprehend, what is otherwise inexpressible—the change occurring within her during her illness and treatment.

She says: “It’s as if there is no longer any fear of death, because a single second in a life like this, of this quality, is worth all the thirty years I spent in my previous one. I don't really feel a fear of death, because it's as if death has disappeared in a way. It's as if life were so present... It's hard to say...

As if the most important thing were this power of life, and the rest ultimately didn't matter at all.”

The Enigma of Optimism: Between Solitude and Meaning

Alicja’s attitude creates a distinct enigma. Her optimism, instead of soothing, provokes anxiety in those close to her. Her positive words seem to shock her surroundings, including the medical staff. Suddenly, they are confronted with something that feels devoid of meaning. So, where does this perceived lack of meaning come from? The hospital staff is accustomed to hearing the negative, even agonizing words of patients. Meanwhile, Alicja's words transcend this narrative. Was it precisely in response to this enigma and lack of representation that the nurses urgently sent me to her room? Indeed, her words do not seem to fit into the socially accepted discourse of the “cancer victim”— a label the patient does not recognize herself in. By reframing the dialectic surrounding cancer into something positive, Alicja sows doubt in the beliefs of others.

Paradoxically, most of the time medical staff try to reassure patients, reminding them that to fight the illness faster, you need to maintain a positive attitude. Here, the roles are reversed—Alicja claims that she is the one taking on the responsibility of reassuring everyone. The staff and loved ones, geared toward helping people in pain, feel helpless and uneasy when they do not see that pain in its classic form. What do these surprising words stir up in others? Through an unconscious identification with the patient, is the surrounding environment confronted with its own mortality? And could this identification breed a certain sense of vulnerability? For if we put ourselves in her shoes, would we be capable of such a positive reaction in the face of such a serious diagnosis? Does Alicja, through her positive words, reflect our own weakness and evoke a form of rejection?

Alicja’s Second Life

A cancer diagnosis most frequently confronts us with a sense of threat and our own finality. It is a painful encounter with the inexplicable, and it is usually traumatic and disorganizing. However, Alicja’s words demonstrate that an encounter with illness can also reconnect a person to life, lead to a metamorphosis, and initiate a psychological renewal. Through the fragments of our meetings, we can see that Alicja, despite a major surgery that altered her body and her femininity, is able to find a new "Me" and undergo a transformation. Yet, this did not happen without a shadow of fear. The therapeutic relationship allowed her to express what had previously remained a mystery to her. Before the illness appeared, she felt lost, uncomfortable in her own body, and constantly dependent on others, as if stripped of her own identity. For Freud, only psychic reality exists.

Alicja seems to have largely overcome her blockages, symptoms, and fears; in her own eyes, she has finally become feminine and beautiful. We can hypothesize that for Alicja, the confrontation with illness touched the very foundations of her existence, while simultaneously helping her rewrite her own history, to love herself and her body. For her, the diagnosis became a new beginning, proving that it does not always have to be exclusively traumatic. The stories of people who, after brushing with death, undergo a profound inner transformation are well known. Later, they go on to accomplish great and noble things, as if they have risen above the fear of death, carried forward by a new life force and a vital impulse that transcends their past experience. Confucius said: “We have two lives. The second begins when we realize we only have one.”

*Denial (French: déni) is one of the basic, primitive defense mechanisms; it is a mechanism in which the psyche completely rejects the fact of a given reality's existence to protect itself from anxiety, suffering, or guilt.

**In psychology and everyday life, a backlash (un contre-coup) is an emotional or physical after-effect that appears only some time after a stressful event, once the initial emotions and adrenaline have subsided.